By Natalia George and Jia D’Souza

Hey there! The theme selected for this month’s edition, “Unity and Immunity”, really stood out to us. Mostly because in all honesty, it was really daunting to find an interesting piece of work to share our thoughts and comments on given the puzzling way the theme seems to be both specific yet open to interpretation. We had been pondering upon bringing a book into the spotlight and thus we chose Lydia Millet’s “A Children’s Bible”. This book was our prime candidate as it showcases the idea that when even children combine their strengths with resilience, they can overcome any adversity.

Summary and Background

The book follows a group of children and their horrible parents vacationing in a lakeside house for the summer. The book starts off with the children exploring the nature surrounding them and humorous games that the kids play. Infact, we were reminded of our summer breaks where long sunny days were spent with cousins while trying to avoid our parents. 

The plot takes a quick turn when a storm of biblical proportions disrupts the peace and the children are forced to fend for themselves while the parents ignore the situation. The parents self medicate with alcohol and drugs (“They drank wine and beer and whiskey and gin. Also tequila, rum and vodka. At midday they called it the hair of the dog”) forcing the children to run away as society as we know it falls apart. A box of tampons cost $40, there is no electricity and people resort to arms and burglary in order to survive. 

As a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, Millet is well acquainted with coming up with imaginative pieces that dazzle readers. Millet does something that many writers in the near future will have to do – intertwine our climate change future into fiction. Millet is truly revolutionary as she brings forth a few unique genres such as plausible dystopia and funny dystopia (keep in mind we mean dark humor!). While reading this book we were reminded of the quote “We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, but borrow it from our children”. Millet’s book aims to teach us the same, the destruction  of today has to be cleaned up by the children of tomorrow. 

Our Thoughts

The name of this book is admittedly VERY misleading. This is in absolutely no way a book that parallels the religious teachings of the church. Decorated with strong language, references to drugs and sexual conduct, this book is not safe to be read at church. Moreover, “ A Children’s Bible” can be quite a heavy book to digest because of the strong allegories pertaining to individual responsibility both to other people as well as the environment. Especially at a time when the world is recovering from a plague.

Jack, the narrator’s brother, is given a Children’s Bible by one of the mothers. As he reads it, it becomes one of his favorite books and with no contact he sees parallels to the happening around him and the stories of the bible. Millet’s parallels to the Bible are clever and subtle – a plague, a female Cain and Abel duo, Noah’s Ark, an all knowing owner (God), wise men that attend to the birth of a young child. The beauty of the book is that none of these parallels are overbearing to the reader, in fact one does not really need to know these Bible stories in detail to understand the book. 

The voice of the narrator is quite flat and objective which is clearly intentional on Millet’s part considering Evie, the speaker, is a teenage girl living in unusual circumstances. She rarely beats around the bush, never hesitating to be blunt. If you are someone who truly values the simplicity in your read, this book is definitely for you!

What we thoroughly enjoyed was the role reversal in the novel. It’s tragic yet comical to see the parents all drugged up while the children take roles as major decision makers and supervisors. It’s not something that you can always witness in reality. However, it is not entirely impossible and maybe Millet was trying to have some fun with the idea that being highly educated, just like many parents were doctors and high ranking businesspeople, didn’t stop them from giving into temptation.

The relationship between Evie and her brother, Jack, is endearing. She strives to protect him from all the evil in the world knowing that he is naive and innocent. Through the book you can see the limbo Evie is in as she contemplates if Jack is ready to know that someday the penguins of this world will disappear. Jack’s obsession with the Bible leads him to capture an owl, a skunk and even a bee hive in order to save them from the storm in a classic Noah the Ark style. He embodies the purity and focus required to change the world that we live in. 

Unity in Immunity

Undoubtedly our favourite lines from the book have to be:

“When their habitats collapsed they had no familiar terrain. No map. No equipment. No tools. Just some melted guns strapped to their waist”

Evie narrates how her parents are out of their comfort zone in a destroyed town that has been beaten and bruised by the forces of nature. 

Millet specifies that they have nothing but “melted guns”, guns that have been damaged and thus there is no guarantee that they will work. In short, they don’t actually have anything except themselves. And, as if fate was having a good laugh, it seemed as though the world is ending when they, in some way, try to reclaim their responsibilities as guardians to their children.

They have nothing left but each other to support themselves. The truest essence of having “immunity in unity”.

Lydia Millet holds a master’s degree in environmental policy so the dreary atmosphere painted in the book might be a nod to her arriere-pensee, to draw attention to the worst-case scenario we may be approaching if ignorance and selfishness continue to drive our world and the consumption of resources. In fact, events in the book seem very real as climate change continues to worsen. Global warming is an issue that imperatively requires collective action to control. 

Conclusion

If you do decide to pick up this book, be sure that you are prepared for an adventure hidden in the pages. Each page is sprinkled with all kinds of disaster and it may sometimes feel like there is no way a happy ending could be reached. But with disaster there is always hope that things will get better, and this extends beyond the novel as well!

Till next time,

Nuts and Chia